


A Study in Red (and carrots and peas)

by SaturnChild



Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Ableism, Asperger Syndrome, Autism Spectrum, Cameo: Frank's PTSD, Character Study, Echolalia, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Frank has a notebook, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Matt Murdock, Light Angst, Literal Matt Murdock, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Prompt: Red, Protective Frank Castle, Sensory Overload, Sensory Processing Disorder, Stimming, Sweetheart Matt Murdock, autistic matt murdock, frattweek4, internalized ableism, meltdowns, on how to take care of his man, social cues, soft bois
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnChild/pseuds/SaturnChild
Summary: Frank thinks (knows) there's something Matt is not telling about himself. But it's okay. They don't need to talk about it to deal with the difficult parts.Karen gets involved (because that's what she does). And she's now so very certain that Matt is an undiagnosed Aspie.Oh, and Frank has a notebook.
Relationships: Frank Castle & Karen Page, Frank Castle/Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150229
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	A Study in Red (and carrots and peas)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Coming in a little late, but I've been excited for this one.   
> So, I've been dying for a Frank/Matt story with Autistic!Matt, exploring not only the sensorial issues but also everything else that a person in the Spectrum deals with. Then, I thought how amazing it would be to try and put it in Frank's point of view, a hardened marine whose approach to things is usually so methodical and strategical.   
> Mixing Matt's neuroatypical brain and his mutation was a little challenging, but I like to think it turned out okay  
> This is more of a character study on both of them then anything else. I hope you guys enjoy it <3

Frank notices Red is overly blunt right at the beginning. Before they started going out, that time where their confrontations sounded more like flirtations than anything else. He finds it hilarious, actually. 

They had been licking their wounds back in Matt’s place, the light’s on in Castle’s benefit, when Nelson called. Frank had a deep graze in his right bicep and probably a slight concussion, and had been stitching himself up. Matt had a bullet stuck on his shoulder, and guaranteed he could deal with it by himself, had done it before.

Frank didn’t argue, not then. He just grumbled about it. 

He had just taken out the bullet from there, hisses and long groans filling the apartment when the monotonous  _ foggy, foggy, foggy  _ started. The screen in Matt’s phone blinking with the other lawyer’s name. 

“Hi Foggy. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I made it home. Obviously.” Frank snorted at that one “No, I don’t have time to talk right now. Because I have to stitch the bullet hole. Bye” 

“Asshole” he had muttered then, a chuckle hidden in his voice, for Red’s messing with his friend. Or at least, that’s what he had thought, but it clearly wasn’t the case when Murdock just tilted his head, looking confused. 

“What do you mean?” he frowned, scrunching his nose slightly. He always did that, it was distracting. Matt had the needle and thread through his skin by that point, and that’s when Nelson calls again.

Matt puts in on speaker, unable to hold the phone to his ear. 

“Hi, Foggy”

“What. Do. You mean. A bullet hole?” his voice leaves in short puffs of air over the phone, like Nelson had just stopped himself from having an attack. Which was feasible.

“Well, I was shot. I took the bullet out already. It wasn’t hot, at least. I didn’t sense the gun fast enough”

“Wha- you said- you said you were fine!” Nelson’s voice was almost hysterically frantic by that point.

“I am. The bullet didn’t hit anything major. I’m gonna to stitch it now”

“ _ Goddamn it _ , Matt!” 

That makes Red stop, face frowning in confusion.

“Why are you angry?”

“ _ Why?-  _ Because you scared the hell out of me, that’s why!” he keeps talking faster, it’s almost difficult for Frank to pick out the words. It’s kinda funny though.

“Scared?” he makes the most confused face Frank had ever seen him make. 

Eh, Red’s done odder things. He keeps stitching his own wound.

“Of course! You don’t- you don’t just say you’ve been shot and turn off the phone!” 

“Oh” Frank almost laughs right then “Should I say it before, then?” 

“Yeah, that’d be nice”

“Okay. Bye then, Foggy. I’ll start stitching now. Thank you for worrying about me. Don’t forget the medicine for your intestines. Bye” Nelson splutters at the other end of the line, but finally signs deeply and says his goodbyes. Frank’s brows and the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement as he tries to keep back a laugh. 

Murdock is concentrating on his wound by then. It wasn’t the oddest he’s ever seen from the man, so he didn’t think about it much. Life went on.

A month later, however, they end up in bed together. Frank has no courage or will to leave as soon as he sleeps, although he’s not sure what Matt wants out of this  _ thing _ . When the smaller man cuddles to his chest and burrows to his warmth, he makes the decision and stays the night.

Matty is sitting down in the coffee table when he makes his way out of the shower, after discussing who’d have a go first. (Red did, and Frank was almost sad to say goodbye to his spectacular bed hair).

“Good morning, Frank”

“Mornin’, Red” he answers, albeit still lazy and relaxed, and it comes out slurred. He sees his damp red hair shining against the daylight and can’t help but drop a kiss to his lips fondly, before serving himself with some of the recently brewed coffee.

When he sits down, close to the lawyer’s side, he notices how shifty he is, squirming a bit at his seat and picking at the strands of his hair. Frank’s about to ask what’s wrong when Matt all but blurts it out:

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ahm... course, knock yourself out” he looks confused for a second, and then makes a face, as if remembering something and nods.

“Anyway. I wanted to ask what having sex meant to you. As in, emotionally speaking. I know what it meant physically, I’m quite sure” he smiles a bit at his own joke, and Frank gulps the hot coffee too quickly. And has to cough a little not to choke.

Damn.

“What?”

“Oh” the other frowns “I said, I wanted to ask-“

“No, I got it. I meant what did you mean...?”

“Oh. I meant to ask if this encounter was casual for you. People do those things. I don’t, not really. Except for Wade, but that was one time. And I wanted to know if it wasn’t casual for you as well”

“I don’t really... do casual either, Mat- Wait, you don’t mean Wade Wilson right-?” 

“So does that mean you... you want me?” Frank deflates then, a smile taking his face before he can stop it. He gets closer to Red, his knees and legs making space for his. 

“Yeah. I want you quite alright, Matty” and kisses him again. He had forgotten how  _ amazingly good  _ morning sex could be. And Red is a really sweet, vigorous lover. 

The first few months, Frank learns some things. First, that Matt can be quite peckish when it comes to food. He liked to buy organic and organic only and will make a face every time he smells something “ _ exceedingly chemical”,  _ as he described it once. Frank didn’t understand it much, beyond the fact it most likely had something to do with Matt’s shockingly sharp senses.

The second thing he learns it that Matty can be really particular about organization and where his things went, even when the place was a bit of a mess sometimes. 

He explained it how using his senses to map places takes a lot of his concentration, and that they don’t really substitute sight, so he trips when things are out of place. Frank memorized the layout so he’d always be careful with that.

But there were things, he noticed, that weren’t quite related to his need for organization. And something more like a tick. His shoes were always perfectly aligned by the door, and he never left more than two pairs there. His jacket is always in the third coat hanger, never the first, second, fourth or fifth. His folded cane always in the bureau in the hallway, his glasses alligned perfectly with it. 

His books were always stashed by the right at the coffee table. And he had something about his mugs. He had four of them and he left them perfectly aligned in a square at the kitchen counter.

Frank once took one out of place just to  _ see  _ what would happen and Matty couldn’t focus on his breakfast, squirming in place for minutes on end until he stood up and put it back in place. He hid a smile behind his hand when he huffed, sitting down and finally seemed at ease to eat.

He was careful to leave them aligned, then. 

The third thing Castle noticed, was that Red’s skin was  _ insanely  _ sensitive to touch, texture and temperature. When they had sex, it could be a good thing, although Frank always made sure to be careful not to overwhelm him. He once had to stop midway and hold him close tightly when he started trembling and whining. Frank’s stubble, apparently, was really rough on his skin.

At other times, it just really riled him up. He’d never use cotton unless they were really old and worn down. He’d wash new jeans at least seven times before wearing them. He would completely melt when he touched fleece or softened special wool. Yelp when the water temperature was anything above 28 degrees Celsius. 

The fourth thing he noticed, was how heavily dependent on routine Matt felt. He’d eat the same things at breakfast on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, Friday’s, the same things on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and Saturday’s. And something different each Sunday. He’d leave for work exactly at 8:20 a.m. He’d arrive back home, almost always, exactly at 6:15. It was almost like he walked on a timer, but Frank understood the need for it. He felt the same, after so many years in the military.

He noted those things so he could adapt to them. He was spending more and more time there, but it was still Red’s space and he wanted him to feel comfortable in it. If he did things this way or that, Frank didn’t care. He just wanted him to feel safe in his own space.

He understood that need too.

The first time Matthew came home anxious, shaking and riled up, he didn’t understand it at first. He entered in  _ fix it, help him, eliminate the threat  _ for a few seconds before his head came back to it’s place and he could think clearly about the situation. Seing Red in distress just kept getting harder and harder, everyday that his affection for him grew.

He had been flinching at every tiny sound he heard, nervously pulling the hairs at the back of his head, hands shaking as he paced. Frank noticed the paleness, the sweating. It almost looked like a panic attack, but he didn’t think it was one. He had seen Matty having panic attacks, that one time, before they started dating, that Nelson received a threat by e-mail from a former client. This was different.

Red kept humming under his breath, a constant stream of a monotonous melody, hands erractically grabbing and pulling his hair. He didn’t know what triggered whatever this was but he knew what helped Matty calm down, at least, he thought he did.

Matt doesn’t even seem to notice his presence. Frank usually doesn’t have to announce himself for him to know he’s there, but today, he just walks to him room and curls up on the ground, hands holding his ears as he starts... rocking?

Rocking. He had never seen Matt do that, had he? 

_ Fuck.  _ Who would he call, if he didn’t know how to help, after all? He knew what had helped with the panic attack, but what did he do now? This wasn’t a panic attack. He just had absolutely no idea what it was.

He has to try. 

Frank slowly approaches the room, sitting down by Matt’s side. Leaving ample space for him to move or step back if he needs to. 

“Matty... how can I help?” he asks, quietly, and Matt just whines low in his throat, voice shuddery and breathy. One of his hands forming into a fist and hitting the side of his head. “Woah-” Frank instinctively holds his wrist, trying to keep his touch as light as he can, but that only seems to upset him further.

Matthew moans in discomfort, pulling his hand away, curling into himself a bit more. He starts shaking his head then, still humming under his breath, and Frank’s heart just keeps beating faster and harder against his ribcage. He feels like it just might explode.

He knows of someone who maybe knew what was happening.

“Nelson. It’s Frank”

“What Fran-? Oh, Jesus Christ on a  _ cracker-“ _

“Matt came home odd. He’s shaking, and he’s covering his ears. He’s pale, rocking himself and humming in the ground and won’t respond to anything I say. Now, you lived with him a long time. What do I do?” he cuts to the chase, has no time to explain why he’s using Matt’s burner phone or why he’s in his house in the first place. Matt had told him he tried to tell Nelson and he thought he had been joking.

“He wasn’t  _ joking-  _ okay, okay. You said he’s rocking? Humming, too, right?” 

“Yeah”

“I saw him like that once. He wouldn’t answer me either. I just kept... talking to him I guess. In a really low voice. And we did blanket forts after that, he liked burying himself under the blankets, even when he started sweating like a fount-“

“Just that? He never talked to you? Tell you what to do to help? What triggered it? What is it?”

“When does Matt ever talk about anything he needs?” 

Yeah. He couldn’t argue with that.

He thanks Nelson in a grumble and comes back to Matt’s side, bringing with him the heaviest blanket he could find and burrying him inside. Matt’s shoulders start dropping the tiniest bit.

So Frank starts talking. Whatever nonsense he thinks of. That one time he was shot in the ass and a teenage girl had to put the bullet out. How he met a man in the military once who could do some circus tricks, and it was awesome. About his parents and how he grew up hearing english and italian at home. Anything and everything.

He even tells him about a blueberry pie recipe his mother used to bake him on his birthdays. He had learned after his fifteenth birthday and never forgot after that.

Frank even baked it to his children once. It wasn’t as good as hers.

Eventually, Matty calms down. He looks drained, right away and Frank keeps talking in a low, low voice. Muttering sweet nothing, about  _ how tired, huh, sweetheart, let’s get you to bed.  _ It seems he can’t forget his nature, no matter how many times he covers himself in other people’s blood. He’s still a caretaker deep down and caring for Matt when he’s vulnerable like this feels only natural for the marine.

Red grabs at him hard when he starts pulling him up to his bed, and Frank rises to the pressure. It immediately makes the renewed tension fade from his body, and he sags against his hold. 

Pressure, noted.

Before he drifts off to sleep, he holds Frank’s wrist, as if trying to convey gratitude. He doesn’t seem ready to talk yet, so Frank just drops a kiss on his temple and let’s him rest.

The next day, predictably, Matthew evades the questions as easily as a trained lawyer that’s really bad at lying could do:  _ You don’t need to worry about it. I’m fine. It wasn’t anything, it’s fine now. It’s just my senses. Loud. You know. _

Yeah, he ain’t buying it.

But they have time. If Matt can’t or doesn’t want to talk about it, Frank won’t make him. When he feels safe doing so, they can do it another time, since, for the looks of it, Frank isn’t going anywhere for a while.

He lets it go, but not really.

Frank starts paying attention to the things he had written off as Matt’s odd behaviors, before. Matty quirks, so to speak. He doesn’t dismiss anything anymore and start filing things in the back of his mind. Small things, big things - anything that could be relevant. Anything that could give him a clue to what exactly were those breakdowns and why did they happen and, eventually, find out how to help Matty through them. 

And, if possible, find out how to stop them altogether.

He knew Matthew wasn’t helpless. Was firmly aware of how capable he was of keeping his own. But, in the last four months of dating and the other countless of teaming up, he came to  _ know him _ pretty well too. And if there was one thing to know about Matt Murdock, is that he had a huge, shiny, omnipresent martyr complex. 

And, therefore, dismissed himself and his needs as if they were background issues. Nothing to see here, just a broken bone, just a bullet hole, I’m fine. 

Damn if Frank appeared with a cut or a bruise and the man would start fidgeting and trying his damn hardest not to mother hen him. 

Most often then not, he was unsuccessful. 

And that was something Frank realizes early on. Matt tried hard not to, but he cared so much and felt so deeply for the people he met and he loved. He gave himself wholeheartedly, even when he was so damn scared of opening himself up. In a way, he ended up giving and giving, and never remembering how to take too.

Another thing he realizes too, is the fidgeting. 

He doesn’t think Matthew a particularly hyperactive person. Anxious, maybe. But not overly energetic. For someone as level-headed as he can be in difficult situations, it’s amazing how much he can fidget all day long. And look so caged in when he finds out someone could probably be seeing it and noticing his habits.

He had noticed it before, of course. When they were reluctantly teaming up, right at the beginning. And afterwards, when they started flirting oh so subtly (consisting mostly of Frank having to make it fairly obvious when he’s flirting, use all his words, otherwise Matt would just look blankly at him). He had noticed the fidgeting, and dismissed it easily as only one more personality quirk that merged into becoming that fierce, lovely, beautiful and strong man that he had come to adore. 

Castle never thought it could be related to anything else. Maybe Matty has been dealing with anxiety? It’s the first thing that comes to his mind. That maybe, the anxiety triggered his senses and he couldn’t control them as he usually did. 

He keeps noticing the fidgeting then. 

Matt would rub his fingers in the hem of his clothing, would twiddle with his keys, would press his hands rhythmically around his cane, pull and curl his fingers in his hair, twiddle with the end of his ties, open and close his hands sporadically or wriggle his fingers from time to time. Sometimes, when he looked particularly anxious or uncomfortable, he’d rub his hands hard against his thighs, or scratch at his forearms. He had once seen him nip at his own knuckles repeatedly, too.

He rocked too. 

A lot, actually. Whether he was happy or upset. The first time he actually payed any attention to it was when Red had been particularly excited about this brand of strawberry ice cream he used to love as a kid and could never find it again, after he got out of the orphanage. His eyes had lit up in joy and he started rocking slightly, from the tips of his toes to the ball of his feet. A constant, soothing motion. 

It was how he expressed himself, it seemed. And Frank actually found it kind of endearing, that he was so physical about showing joy and happiness. That his whole body lit up with it, with delight. As if ready to share it, to give it. It wasn’t something he had thought would be a characteristic of someone who had went through so much like Red.

But it was. And it was beautiful.

When he looked nervous and upset, like the time he had that breakdown, he’d rock too. And it always seemed to soothe him slightly in comparison with how distressed he’d been before he started it. Frank didn’t call any attention to it, he knew Red would clam up.

Frank starts researching things then. Fidgeting, rocking. He ends up researching something about difficulty with social stuff. He doesn’t know what to call it, so it takes a while. He researches breakdowns, problems with sensory intake and anything of the like that could help him.

One particular place points it to a meltdown, instead of a breakdown or an anxiety attack. Common in people with anxiety disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, autism and depression or other mental health issues related. It gave him a lot to think. So he researched things he could find in any of those possibilities that he could observe in Red’s behavior. 

Learning disabilities weren’t a real possibility, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything of the like, at least. The site had suggest the cause as a possibility for a meltdown in children at schooling age. So he dismisses that easily enough.

So he learns and researches and tries to find out things that could help, specially with meltdowns related to sensory issues, which had seemed to be the case for Matt.

A month later, it pays off. 

Frank had bought a small notebook where he had been keeping track of things he’d seen and things he had researched. It was almost like tactical planning and he was good at that. He had to adapt to the new situation if he wanted to be of any help and he wanted to be prepared. If it came to a point Red declined that help, he’d step off. They were mostly living together by that point, but Red’s boundaries would always be his boundaries to set. And Frank would never disrespect that, no matter how much of an asshole he could be.

A week before, the ex-marine had bought soundproof headphones, one of the really good ones. An incredibly soft fleece weighted blanket he had read could help (and since witnessing how pressure had helped Red the last time, he decided it was a good call). He made sure to wash that one at least twice, so there wouldn’t be any remaining smell or loose threads that would only make him more uncomfortable.

When the inevitable meltdown came, he asked in a really low voice if he could touch him, asked how much pressure he wanted. Helped Matty to his bed and gave him the headphones. Put him under his normal blankets and the new weighted one. Brought him a glass filled with ice cubes (he had noted on his notebook Matty sometimes chewed on them).

Frank asked permission to sit by him, and when Matt granted it, he asked if he wanted him to read anything to him. Anything at all. He seemed at least a bit more settled when he mumbled, real low, to read him the Wikipedia page about Thurgood Marshall. 

He didn’t ask why. If that was what Matty wanted, he’d do it.

“ Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as  Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991...”

Matt finally calmed down when he reached the end of the man’s biography, and drifted off to sleep muttering the words with Frank. He, apparently, knew the whole Wikipedia page by heart. Before he completely drifted off, he reached out to try and bring Frank to his cocoon of blankets. 

He complied, of course. 

After that day, a bit more confident that they could deal with this easier than the first time, Frank tried to track the telling signs that could warn him off of a possible meltdown. He had his suspicions about what could be the root cause underlying everything, but he was hardly any expert, so he didn’t jump to conclusions. 

He noticed some things that they could deal with before it evolved to a full blown meltdown. Like the days Matty would get obsessively preoccupied with something and would change from asking questions to going distant and trapped in his own mind. Until it led to full blown anxiety.

Other days, he noticed, Red would go scarily still. Body locking itself tense together, almost at the point of holding his breath. The only part of him moving, sometimes, would be his hands; doing small, repetitive motions. He’d stop speaking, even after he started to react to Frank’s motions and voice. As if his words got stuck somewhere in the back of his throat and he couldn’t force them out.

The sensory issues, although Matt tried really hard to convince him were only related to his mutation, usually were what he had the most trouble with. When a sound got him off his guard, he’d flinch hard and start with the  _ no-good, I’m about to go into full-blown-meltdown mode  _ type of fidgeting. 

After it happened a third time and his man kept insisting it was only a side affect of his insanely sharp senses, Frank knew there was more to it and that Matthew probably knew. If he didn’t, he’d dismiss it like he did with mostly anything that concerned his own health. Maybe insist in some easy explanation too, but not  _ that  _ much. 

He was trying too hard. That was usually a telling sign with Murdock.

Frank’s proven right when his notebooks start getting full of notes about Matt’s daily difficulties with something most people, like Frank himself, found exceptionally easy: social interaction and social cues. He didn’t have to like it, but Frank knew how to behave himself. How to talk, how to be polite, how to act in a workspace, what to say, what not to say.

Matt, it seemed, knew a lot of those too, but through a series of repeated, carefully laid out rules he needed to remind himself of almost everyday, it seemed. Red was empathetic to a fault, so when he learned about how someone felt about something related to him, he’d immediately add to his big brain what to do and what not to do in order to prevent or remedy something he may have done without noticing.

It took Frank a while to notice that. And when he did, he though back to that day, many months before, when Red had almost given his buddy Nelson a heart attack through the phone. 

There was a lot of social convention Matty seemed to have difficulty grasping. It became clear when he started talking more to Frank about that kind of hardship. 

“Matty” he’d called him one day, coming to the living room where his nurse friend, Claire, was checking on a fracture he had two weeks before “Buddy Nelson called earlier. Wanted to know why you didn’t warn him about some case you took? Some documents”

“Oh. I didn’t need to warn him. I left the documents at his table. It was all written there” he answers with conviction. Frank grunts in response, squinting a bit a Matt. He had been noticing those little things that told him Matty’s head processed social stuff a bit differently than Frank’s did, so it wasn’t the first time. But it seemed clearer then. He could try to understand it with a level-headed approach he usually didn’t have. 

Claire, however, made a face.

“Would be nice to warn your partner, no? So he knows what to expect?” she admonishes lightly, and Frank has to refrain from glaring. She’s helping them right now, she helps them all the time when she doesn’t have to. He ain’t gonna be a pain in her ass.

“There’s nothing to expect. He’ll only need to read the documents. It’s all written there, as I said” Matty looked even more confused, and Claire probably thought he was being uncooperative, Frank was just taking it all in with new eyes. 

“Well. You don’t run that firm by your own now, do you? Your buddy might want to know the cases you take before you drop the paperwork on his table now, don’t you think?” she’s a bit like a chiding mother and it rubs Frank a bit off. It’s not like Matt’s trying to be an asshole or something of the like, he seems oblivious to why it would be advisable or why it would be considerate of him regarding his friend and business partner. 

“He does?” he tilts his head then. “I didn’t know that was a rule” Claire looks at him weirdly then, eyes studying and considering. 

Frank knows she’s noticed the same he did, the term  _ rule.  _ It separated a concept in social nuances that, for them, was taught early on, absorbed and became normality. A second layer above hard facts. That for Matt it was called a rule, told them of something he had to remind himself daily, or that someone, once, drilled onto him. 

“It’s not exactly a rule. It’s courtesy” Frank explains, trying not to sound condescending but helpful. 

“Oh”

It became another one of Matty’s footnotes into social interactions. He started warning Frank of the most trivial things. But, on the bright side, of the important, big ones too. 

“Frank. I left the keys to your van on the nightstand. You forgot them in the kitchen counter. Keys are dirty, so no keys in the kitchen counter.” And, as an afterthought “Please”

He had chuckled and nodded at his antics, and came slowly towards him, stealing a kiss from his pretty lips. 

_ “Oh”  _ that particular, breathy little sound always made them end up in bed. That day wasn’t any different. 

Once, when it was almost midnight, Red started mumbling to himself desperately as he searched for his phone. When he finally did, he mumbled to it to call Foggy and settled in bed. Squirming from time to time. Frank just observed him from his place under the sheets.

“ Hi, foggy. I'm fine, thank you. And I haven't been shot. I forgot to tell you I left new documents on your table. It's a divorce case. Miss Wendy is nice, she bakes cupcakes for the group home in Chelsea. I like her fabric softener, although I don't like the sound her shoes make. Anyway, I only wanted to warn you, it’s common courtesy. Sleep well, bye”

He smiled a bit at himself, and went to sleep, cuddling close to Frank’s chest like the little snuggle bug he pretended he wasn’t. 

It really didn’t bother Frank that Matt seemed to need a bit of further explaining on some things regarding unpredictable, non-logical social cues. It was a Matt thing and that was that. If it was related or not to the meltdowns, he didn’t know. But they had time to figure it out. 

One day, Matty came home with a pensive frown in place.

Frank had been the one assigned to make dinner then, coming back earlier from his day job at the construction site. He usually did simple foods, realizing early that Matt enjoyed them way more than fancy, complicated recipes. 

So he had cooked a mac and cheese and it immediately got Matty to settle a bit, when he smelled it. He sighed in relief too, flashing Frank a delighted little grin. The marine, of course, couldn’t resist demanding some kisses from the smaller man, nuzzling his cheek and the crook of his neck for a while before going back to his chair.

“Thank you for dinner”

It was another curious thing he had noted about Matt: he would always, always say what he was thanking someone for. It was almost like an ingrained habit. Like something that had been drilled onto him on his earlier years and that he kept as he grew up. 

Frank suspected nuns. Nuns were a piece of work.

“What’s got you frowning like a grumpy bun?” he grunts, a small smile on his face. Matt always scrunches his nose slightly, once or twice, when he’s frowning or thinking particularly hard about something. 

He starts plucking at his hair then. Hum. Anxious. Okay. He could deal with that.

“Foggy’s angry”

“Hm?”

“I don’t hide things from him anymore. But he’s angry. And I don’t understand what heart of matters mean, but he says we have to talk and that we don’t hang out anymore  _ and-“ _

_ “ _ Matty. Take a breath” he did, slowly breathing in and out “Okay. Tell me, sunshine”

“Foggy says we don’t talk anymore. Which is untrue. We speak ten to twelve times a week through phone calls, and everyday in the office. So he started his defense with a weak argument” that’s weirdly specific, but he has come to realize Matt keeps count of everything (he had to, after he noticed Matt knew exactly how many underwears and socks he wore a week, and told him he had to buy two more of each if he didn’t want to keep doing his laundry twice every seven days) “He said something about us not hanging out anymore, and that I don’t tell him things. Which is also untrue. I told him about our relationship, I tell him about our big targets, and my wounds too. He’s being unreasonable and he changed his shampoo”

Okay. 

Right. Shampoo.

“The shampoo thing made you angry?”

“M’not angry. I’m... I’m...”

“Frustrated”

“Yes!”

“Because of what he said or the shampoo?”

“Both, obviously. This one is bad to his hair and it smells horrible and clashes with his body spray and his deodorant is  _ completely different-“ _

_ Obviously,  _ he says. 

“Okay. So. He wants you guys to talk, you said?”

“Not really. He said he wanted us to get to the  _ heart  _ of the matter. Which makes no sense. Do you think Foggy is using drugs? I couldn’t smell anything on him though-“

“Why do you think he’s using-” oh. Oh.

Metaphors. Analogies. He had read it in a website before. A mention about some people in the Autism Spectrum taking things literally. Now that he thinks of it... could it be?

“Hm. It’s an expression, Red”

“What is?”

“Getting to the heart of the matter. It’s like, getting to the root of a problem. What’s causing it, you see?”

“No” it takes a while for him to realize,  _ oh fuck blind jokes again, fuck you Matty. _

“We get it, smartass. You can’t see. You wanna say it again?” he’s laughing too, he can’t help it. Their shitty sense of humor is shared by now. When they stop their chuckling however, Matt smiles a bit sheepishly at him.

“Thank you. For... hum. Explaining. I’m sorry I was in a bad mood”

Frank grunts in answer.

“No need to apologize for that shit”

“Hm. But... Frank?” he grunts again, mouth full of food, to prompt him to ask what he needs “I don’t know what the matter is. Or the problem. He said we don’t talk, we established that we do. He said we don’t hang out, which isn’t true either, we see each other outside of work at least once a week. And he said I don’t tell him things, which is also incorrect, because I tell him everything, including my gunshot wounds”

Okay. You can do this, Frank.

“I think he means you don’t tell him things of your personal life” Matty frowns hard then.

“They are my personal life too. And so are you. And sometimes Maggie. You’re all I have”

Aw. Okay. Okay. Don’t loose focus. 

_ He’s fucking adorable. _

Focus.

“I think he means you don’t talk about feelings and shit. Buddy might be feeling a little bit left out”

“That doesn’t make sense. I always tell him if I need something now. And he has no reason to feel left out” he frowns a bit more then “Does he?”

“Dunno. He found out by me we were together, right?”

“No. I told him before”

“But he didn’t believe you’

“Oh, well. That wasn’t very logical of him. I don’t make that kind of jokes, Foggy knows that” and then, his eyes did something funny. They brightened up a bit, as if realizing something, at the same times he frowned “Did he think I was hiding?”

“Probably, sunshine”

“Oh. But I told him I wouldn’t hide things anymore. So it probably isn’t that” literal. Yeah. It was starting to make a lot of sense. But could it really be possible? Matt wouldn’t hide something like that, right? And if he really was autistic, he probably was diagnosed. So, he knew. Or did he? 

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Matt ignored like he ignores almost anything concerning his health and himself.

“Nah. But he might get afraid sometimes. That you’ll hide something and get hurt”

“Hum. It makes sense. Fear is hardly logical, after all” Frank smiles at him, he’s got his pensive face now, but he looks a bit more at ease. He’s glad he could help “Thank you, Frank. I’ll talk to him later. I hope he understands I won’t ever hide things from him again. I made a promise, after all”

“You’re welcome”

And he really is. Frank just likes to see him like this, crisis solved, relaxed and with a goal in mind. 

“Eat, sunshine. Com’on. It’ll get cold”

“It’s not a problem. Your food is good even when it’s cold. Except cold potatoes. Cold potatoes are  _ disgusting” _ his face was hilarious, as if the memory itself could take physical shape and devour him. 

Red was a piece of work.

“Thank you for the pasta and for the advice”

He beams at him. Frank can’t help but chuckle in amusement. He’s a piece of work alright. And he’s enamored.

Two weeks later, they are planning on taking down some small time criminals that have been giving a lot of trouble to girls in Midtown High. Jones had gotten involved and they found out the small time criminals were hired by a anonymous gang or mafia, and they had no idea who they were.

“The main obstacle would be finding their bases. There has to be at least two, considering the area we tracked. We’ll have to talk to the kids who gave up the jobs, try to understand how they’re recruiting them, get to the heart of the matter” and then, with a small, beaming smile “That’s an expression, by the way” and kept walking through the alleyways, wearing dark clothes and foregoing his red shades.

Frank had to hold back a chuckle and Jones just raised her eyebrows. Shaking her head and grumbling under her breath. 

After that, Matty has no qualms coming to him and asking for clarification in something he couldn’t understand at first. It also helps Frank to get a clearer picture of what Matt has difficulty with, in which ways his head seems to work differently. He seems to be used to sarcasm by now, but the really subtle ones usually passed under the radar, he’d respond to them literally and easily, without a second thought. 

Most of the time, now, his questions narrowed down to things like:

“Foggy asked if I quit my weekly impulsive decision because of you. Said it had been a long time since I almost died. He asked if I quit cold turkey. Which makes no sense. He was laughing too, which was weird. I didn't smell any drugs on him though. So he should be fine”

And “Frank, she asked me about braille and then Foggy said I should stop talking but she  _ asked me  _ to talk, so why did he think I should  _ stop?” _

And “Luke said he wasn’t tired, but his shoulders were slumped and he kept sighing a lot and he was distracted. Do you think he’s sick? I couldn’t smell it on him though” which he had responded with a:  _ “he looked a bit down, yeah”  _ and Matt did his “I just realized something” face.

There was also the day a grocery store attendant flirted with Matt.

“Frank, why was she mad at me? I only said the truth" 

“She was flirting with you”

“W-what? No she wasn't”

“Yes she was red" 

“Well, it certainly explains why she kept putting on lipstick. She probably didn’t notice I couldn’t really  _ see it.  _ Anyway, bad for her. I have a boyfriend” 

And then it was Frank's turn to get flustered. Being called someone's boyfriend was an experience he didn't think would happen again. The sex that night was insanely good though. 

Sometimes, it happened in between conversations too. Like with the bulletproof guy, Luke.

“Oh alright, you've twisted my arm, were doing it your way”

“No I did not” Matt answered, eyebrows furrowed.

“What?”

“I didn't twist your arm”

And that other time with Nelson.

“Heather? The name doesn't ring a bell”

“Oh, good, that would be rather odd”

Nelson had dismissed it quite easily. Probably used to it, he knew Red for a long time. Frank just smiled. It was his default mode with Matt.

And how many _times_ did he hear the question:

"Sarcasm?"

"Yes, Matty. Sarcasm"

It didn’t take him a long time to realize people took advantage of him for that. 

“So...” a woman had approached him once at a diner, when Frank was in the line to get their food “excuse me. I couldn’t help but notice you sitting here all by your own. We could share a lunch, what do you think?”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be eating with my partner. He’s in the line”

“Right. You’re blind, huh?”

“Yes, obviously” Matt continued touching around his braille book, the girl clearly interested in something in getting something from him.

“What’re you reading?”

“Thurgood Marshall”

“You like it, huh?” oh shit, she’s in for a show. Matt immediately perked up in his chair.

“Yes, of course. Why would I read it otherwise? He was actually the first African-American judge in the United States, during the racial segregation he-“

“Hey, hey, calm down there. No one wants to listen about that” Matt immediately shut up, eyebrows furrowing “I... Ok, man, can I be real with you? I’m really hungry and I don’ have any money. I’ve been walking around all day and my feet hurt a lot, actually. Can you help me out?”

“Oh” he could see Matt calculating, head tilting slowly. The girl had this big, nasty shit-eating grin in her face. Frank could see some bills in her pocket, knew she had enough to eat. But she clearly thought taking money out of a blind guy was easy enough. 

“Come on. You can help out, you have a nice suit, you clearly have money. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience now, would you?”

Matt, however, couldn’t see her expressions. The self-satisfied smile in her face. As good as his senses were, some things they couldn’t make up for. And he clearly wasn’t reading into the small manipulation she did there. Shit, he didn’t want to intervene. Knew Red could take care of himself. But fuck if he would let this little shit get away with that.

Red was already finding his wallet when Frank got out of the line and came to their booth. His eyebrows immediately furrowed when he took note of his heartbeat, probably noticing how angered he was. 

“What’s happening here?”

The beard and the overall ragged look was probably enough to scare her. Or probably the fact she had just been caught red handed. Matt seemed somewhat confused with her accelerated heartbeat, and then his face fell into smooth blankness.

He had realized it.

Matt stays quiet all of the way back home. Pensive. But he lets Frank cuddle him close when they finally go to sleep. He hopes he’ll be more wary of people now. Not only the ones bearing guns that they fight during the night.

He decides to ask Karen about the meltdowns. They are bound to have seen it once or twice, or anything else that he had been noticing about Matt. They have known him for a longer time, and since he’s not close pals with Nelson, he calls her and they meet up at an undisclosed, discreet diner.

“Did Matt ever had one of those... those meltdowns with you or Nelson?”

“Uh... I don’t know what you mean”

“The sounds. Smells. Get too much sometimes. It never happened with you guys, then?”

“Hm.. I think it did, actually. But I had just started at Nelson and Murdock, and Foggy asked me to wait in another room. He was ahm... anxious? Started pulling on his hair, I thought he was really tired, he did look really beaten down that day”

Frank grunts in response. He’s not willing to disclose anything he may suspect or know, it’s Matt’s life and he’s not going to talk about his stuff when he doesn’t want to. He had hoped for a little bit of insight, however. Maybe Red was that good at hiding, even though he was a shit liar.

“Oh..” yeah. Bad idea involving Karen in this. He’ll have shit figured out and start bugging Matt with passive-aggressive comments by the end of the week. 

“What?”

“It’s just... I asked Foggy about Matt once. He’s really... I don’t know. Direct? Rarely understood my jokes...” she’s getting there way faster than Frank had. Fuck. “There was this lady, once? Foggy and I were occupied with an immigration case and a case of police abuse on top of that, and Matt took a separate one. Divorce case. And it took us a while to notice but... she kept asking him to do things for her? Said she wasn’t comfortable seeing her ex-husband, so she asked him to pick things for her and he just did-“

And then she narrowed her eyes at him.

“You know something”

“No” she had that look. Fuck. Karen was impossible to talk to when you were trying to hide things from her. “It’s Matt’s stuff. I just wanted to know if you guys knew how to prevent these episodes”

Aw. She has the ‘research to do’ face. He screwed this up.

It takes her  _ four days.  _ By Friday, his phone’s ringing and her name is right there. Frank knows you can’t ignore Karen, doesn’t matter how hard you tried. So to avoid her showing up at Matt’s place at one in the morning, he takes the call.

“He’s neuroatypical isn’t he?”

“He’s a what now?”

“Matt. He’s in the Spectrum, right?”

“I don’t know”

“Don’t bullshit me now, Frank”

“I... look. He doesn’t talk about it. I just... looked stuff up. I didn’t ask him about it”

"Why not? It makes sense. Doesn’t it? The sensory problems, coupled with a mutation like his, the literality, those things he does with his hands-” of course she had noticed that too. Why did he ask Karen for help, of all people? Of course she wouldn’t let it go.

“’Kay. Look. Karen? Matt is hella uncomfortable about it. Every time it happens, he barely talks to me for a day”

“But it’s not a  _ disease,  _ it’s just... he experiences things differently, that's all”

“I know. But I don’t think he thinks like that”

“Do you think he’s ashamed of it?”

“Maybe. Just... don’t bug him”

“Of course. Yeah”

He’s awfully glad Karen is so understanding too. 

It’s dinner time the next day when he finally brings it up with Matt, while they eat simple, bland pasta with alfredo sauce. He hadn’t made the connection yet between Matty’s picky habits when it came to food and his possible autism diagnosis.

“Matty”

“Hum?”

“You know how you told me you had a tough time adapting to people? You said.. said you didn't understand things they said, motives and feels and all that sometimes”

“Hum” Matt keeps eating. 

Yeah. He probably does know. No other reason he’d be trying that hard at that nonchalant act. 

“The problems you have.. with sound, smell, touch... those things, they happened before you went blind, didn’t they?” that makes him stop chewing for a second, hand stilling mid air. It’s the most casual “deer caught in the headlights” look Frank has ever seen.

Matt slowly nods after swallowing, avoiding letting his eyes roam and keeping them fixed by Frank’s shoulders. 

It doesn’t take him long to start rubbing his thigh with an open palm, anxious, overwhelmed.

“Hey.. I don't wanna make a big deal of anything ‘kay? Just... other people go through that Matty” Matt doesn't make a sound, body going still. “People on the spectrum?”

He slowly turns his head towards frank then. But he doesn't say anything yet. 

“There are ways to help, you know? Things other people do when everything gets overwhelming. And it’s nothing to be ashamed about” 

Matt slowly nods again and opens his mouth to talk. Only to close it again, hand coming to pull on his hair. He stops himself the moment he notices he starts to rock. Body going awfully still again.

Yeah, he's not ready to talk. Alright.

They keep eating in silence, and Frank keeps a warm hand in his knee throughout the meal. Matt leans into it after a while and it reassures Frank he didn’t step over any boundaries.

He does, however, cry in the shower and maybe he thought he was being real sneaky when he muttered about shampoo falling all over his eyes to explain their puffy, red appearance. 

Matt doesn't talk about it the next day or the other, so Frank doesn’t push him. He's got a lot on his mind already and they can take this slow. 

Frank starts to learn the things that help, not only during the meltdowns, but during his daily routines, and the thing that don’t help. They don’t need to talk about it to try things that may help, so try they do.

The fidgeting usually seems to help him stay grounded, and, as he learns with Karen, it’s called a self-stimulatory behavior, or stim. Eager to help, as Karen always is, she sends him addresses and links to places he can buy something called s _ tim toys _ . If he’s going to ty, he going to do it all the way, so he may as well buy some. Frank finds things that Matt might like, listens to the store clerk explanations of what which one is intended for, and ends up buying three of them.

He starts leaving them around inconspicuously. The first one Matt finds is the magnetic rings he had left by the kitchen counter. A set of three rings that he could fiddle and play around with his fingers. They were all colored in red (which he doesn’t need to know about). 

Matt touches them at first with a curious expression, playing with them for a second while he tries to figure out their purpose, face carefully going blank before leaving them back in their place and coming to eat breakfast.

When he leaves for work, the magnetic rings are safe in the pockets of his suitcase and he gives Frank a small, pensive look before kissing him in that slow, careful way of his and going to work.

The other one is a small, 2x2 textured Rubik’s cube. This one, instead of leaving somewhere for Matt to find, the marine gives directly to him. Telling him he found it interesting and thought he would like it. It wasn’t exactly meant for blind people, the textures, the store attendant had said, were meant to be a tactile stim. Some people found it soothing to feel different textures like the ones in the cube. 

Matty had done the same thing he always did when someone went out of their way to give him something: his eyes widening and that beautiful, beaming smile taking over his features. It never ceased to amaze Castle how could he still carry so much sunshine around after witnessing so much shit when they went out at night. Matt was an optimistic in a weirdly realistic and logical way and it was refreshing for Frank.

Surprisingly, Matt’s logical mind and his insane memory prowess are quic to find the patterns and find out how to solve and unsolve the cube with one hand, going only by touch and his ears. He solves it the first time in less than thirty minutes and Frank is impressed.

“You done this before?”

“What? No. It’s the first cube I’ve ever owned”

“Shit” Matty smiles that  _ I’m about to tell you something I find really interesting in a really fast manner endlessly until you beg me to stop  _ smile. And Frank’s a sucker for his smiles, that one included.

“Once you find out which movements it can make, there's not much to do. You just have to figure out how to get them where you want them” 

“Yeah, real simple Red”

“It is, isnt- oh. Sarcasm”

“Yeah” Frank chuckled at his pout and kept kissing his neck in apology until Matty was soft, melted putty in his hands.

He waits a week or so before giving the other. In between that time, he notices Matt fidgeting with the toys more often. He seems to really like the magnetic rings when he’s trying to concentrate on something, and the cube when he’s trying to concentrate in  _ something else. _ Which usually happens when he’s already stressed out or overwhelmed.

The other one was a small stress ball (which wasn’t red, of course). Instead of leaving it around or giving the thing to Matt directly, he threw it towards his head when he turned his back to Frank, fixing himself a cup of coffee. Matty, mutate ninja bastard that he was, caught it easily with his back turned.

“You do know there’s no such thing as ‘behind my back’ when it comes to blind people, right?”

“Blind people or just mutate little ninjas like yourself, Red?”

Red actually tried to start a tickle war after that. Frank was proud to say he won, thank you very much.

The ball stayed in the coffee table after that night, and when they cuddled up close so they could watch a movie, Matty’s sneaky hands would find a way to get a hold of it and squeeze it in three sets of three. Squeeze 3 times. Stop, squeeze 3 times again. Stop. Squeeze 3 times once more, and then drop it. And start over a few seconds later.

Frank learns that what he used to call his little quirks were actually stims, just like the most obvious ones. He writes down what to look for, it helps him remember stuff. His memory is good but it’s selective for the immediate things that his brain finds important, when concerning Matty. Which is how he decides his brain must be really fucked up after the round he took to the head, because he memorized all of his different facial expressions, the subtle ones to the eccentric ones, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him that he didn’t like to eat sliced carrots with peas.

And so, he wrote these things down. To remember them. 

He still had a bullet lodged in his brain and found himself a new concussion at least once a month. Don’t blame him for being forgetful, yeah? 

So, as things goes, he treats it like an op, because that’s how Frank knows how to deal with things. He hopes, in the back of his mind, that Matty will never find that out. He never wanted him to feel like a bug under a microscope (like Frank felt every time Karen pointed out his not-PTSD symptom, like his need to control the things that could be harmful to the people he loves, which has nothing to do with this, it  _ doesn’t,  _ he just wants to understand Matt better, wants to be there for him). 

Matty’s happy and relaxed self-stimulatory behaviors consisted in a variety of things, and Frank ends up not needing to write it all down, for he finds out he had been subconsciously registering these things since the day they started dating. The way he flapped his hands when excited, or his arms by the elbows, the happy humming, the excited rocking in the balls of his feet. The constant motions and the patterns were what seemed to relax him the most and Frank notices those things.

There’s also the movements he did when anxious and tried to calm himself down. When Matt looked particularly repulsed with some type of food, he’d give this short bursts of flapping his hands, as if trying to dispel the feeling of it. Sometimes, he’d wriggle his fingers too, repeatedly. Other times, when he was upset, he’d chew and nip at his knuckles until they were bright red. And, of course, how he’d rub his hands viciously against his thighs when he felt out of control, anxious enough that, sometimes, if he couldn’t calm down, it would later pile up to a meltdown.

When they learn, together, how to manage some of the sensory input and how to detect these anxious behaviors before they snowball into a meltdown, they slowly happen less and less, until they go more than a month in between one or other.

It’s not perfect. After all, Matt is under a lot of sensory input everyday and he witness some really upsetting heavy shit during their time in their vigilante roles. But it’s better already, and Frank will take what he can get.

So, he tries to encourage Murdock in the stims that help him soothe himself and tries to find ways to deal with his outbursts of hitting himself and scratching himself when he’s in a bad shape. Substitute behaviors, it’s what they’re called, or so tells him Karen.

There are a lot of things about Matty and his autism that clear up a lot of things for Frank. And a lot of other things that he has to try to understand and learn how to approach. Karen usually treats it like it’s this big thing, but for Frank, it’s Matt and just that. It’s a part of Matt and he wants to understand it and love it as he does with every other little piece of him. 

For example, Frank learns about the echolalia and the food issues at the same time. The echolalia first, actually. They had been in the middle of an op when Frank got shot right in the thigh, and despite missing anything too vital, it had clearly nicked something for it was bleeding a whole lot. 

The sheer quantity problem threw Matt off the racks, for when Frank talked to him, he didn’t answer immediately, but kept pulling him away from the shootout with trembling arms.

Fuck, he was scared. It was unusual to see Matt scared. 

“Red- let’s stop in the van, I have supplies there” Matt took a whole 10 seconds to answer him.

“Red, let’s stop in the van” he carefully repeated, a small whine mixed with a groan of frustration getting stuck in the back of his throat. Trying so hard to rein his emotions in. Castle knew it was difficult for him to deal with too many emotions at the same time, he had a single-minded focus when it came to subjective things. Probably for he had a hard time figuring them out.

When they got to the van, Matt put him inside and went to the back, shaking hands looking for the supplies. Frank just tried to concentrate on putting pressure on the wound.

“I have supplies there” the echo came again, and Frank turned his head around to see Matt looking a bit frantic, pointing to the place where Frank usually stashed his med kit.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I moved it. It’s in the bag”

“I’m sorry, it’s in the bag” he huffed out of his nose, clearly lacking patience with himself. He knelt by the duffel quickly to find the med kit and then came to sit by Frank’s side. 

“S’okay... gimme a clean rag while you prepare the suture”

“Clean rag” he echoed again, shaking his head. He was clearly trying to tell Frank something.

“What? I’m sure there is some in there”

“S’okay, clean rag” he whispers, showing him the rubbing alcohol. Oh. 

“Okay, okay. Clean it up first, I got it, Red”

“I’m sorry” he echoes again, but this time, his head turns downwards. His cheeks reddened in shame. He’s clearly uncomfortable and overwhelmed and Frank just caresses his face with the hand he isn’t using. 

“It’s okay, Matty. We’re okay”

“We’re okay”

The echolalia didn’t only happen when he was upset though. When something got stuck in Matt’s head, he would blurt it out suddenly sometimes or keep repeating it under his breath, making as little noise as he could. 

Once, he heard something coming from a kid’s show from the neighbors downstairs, and Frank could only smile fondly as he kept repeating  _ “strawberry cherry pie” _ under his breath. 

Red had cleared his throat and blushed when he realized Frank had noticed, but he started muttering it back to him and they ended up cuddling in the couch.

Who would’ve thought. The punisher and daredevil  _ cuddling _ on a couch, muttering lines from kids show. It was amusing, but Frank was fine that way and he wouldn’t change it for the world.

He feels like an idiot when he realizes that Matt’s sensitivity to sensorial input clearly extended to taste. It took him by surprise that his most sensible sense would be taste. Not as in the sharpest one, but the one which he had the most difficulty controlling and dealing with. And it was followed suit by smells and fragrances.

Matt has a really minimalist selection of spices in his pantry. And the day he accompanies him to the market and Red sneezes for ten minutes nonstop after a lady shook a paprika container for no goddamn reason, is the day he realizes the reason.

Food though. Frank had though Matt was picky, and he feels like an asshole now. When he asks (and after he gets past Matt’s attempts of convincing him it’s not a big deal and he doesn’t need to make adjustments for him), Red tells him different sizes and different textures are gross and they actually make his stomach upset (and after admitting it, he keeps with the tirade of  _ it’s not a big deal, of course, so there’s no need to ask) _ . 

Gravy and fish fingers are an absolutely fucking no. The surest way to make Matt’s skin go ash green. It’s one of the only foods he has no qualms about telling the world how gross it is and how he wouldn’t eat it if he was starving and decaying bit by bit and  _ it’s revolting and I'll throw it back at the face of whoever brings it inside this house! _

It actually became a running joke between them to threaten each other with only gravy and fish for dinner when Matt was being reckless at night. Matt just threatened him with no sex for a week, it was usually quite effective.

Frank actually finds out he loves steamed carrots with peas, but only if the carrots are cut into cubes and of the same size. Mashed potatoes are lovely and Matt loves eating them with a side of vegetable-based meat for some reason or another (something about it being easier to swallow? Which Frank can’t relate). Any kind of potatoes, actually. Unless they are cold. 

Matt could throw it back to your face if he ever chewed on a cold potato, he’d shudder in revulsion and look at you with murder written all over his face, blind eyes finding a way to meet with yours.

Sliced fruit is always nice, it seems, but don’t get fancy. Frank learns that they way to Matty’s stomach is to be simple and not use too much spice. Sliced bananas with cinnamon is great. Put bananas with apples together and the textures will clash and Matty will try and put on a brave face as he eats, until he starts rubbing his palms against his thighs.

When Frank understands why it’s so difficult to him to deal with those things, making dinner and breakfast becomes way easier. He knows Matty’s routines by heart at this point. So, sliced fruit, grape juice and cereal on Tuesdays - he knows not to put apples anywhere near bananas and wait until Matty gets out of the shower to put the milk in his cereal, so they won’t get soggy.

His sense of touch is highly sensitized due to his mutation, so it’s one of the things Frank has to learn how to deal with. He had realized at the beginning of their relationship, of course. 

He learns that Matty’s sense of touch extends to other things. He only wears organic, chemical-free, “no tears” baby shampoo. The expansive stuff, he said once, burn through his scalp and his hair actually started falling that one time, so yes, baby shampoo. 

At the beginning, when they were trying to understand how they worked together, Frank had thought the smell would make him nostalgic or even grief-ridden. But in truth, he had a soft night with a soft, pliant Matty in his arms as they cuddled and talked about dogs and the proper way to use a washing machine, for some reason.

And then, there are the things that couple with his sensorial processing disorder. Hug him tightly against your body and he’ll melt into your touch. Touch him too lightly and he’ll flinch slightly, shaking himself as if trying to chase away the feeling.

Frank particularly likes to prompt him to talk about the things he’s interested about. Loves to watch the wide-eyed wonder he still maintains for things he enjoys. It’s so refreshing, after all the shit Frank did and still does, after all the things he put himself through and the things the world put him through. 

So he prompts him to talk about Thurgood Marshall. Or, amazingly, about some specific types of aquatic animals that he’s really interested in. Specifically, jellyfishes, whales, manta rays and coral reefs. When he learns about how passionate he is about it, he tries to bring it to the moments when Matt’s upset or having a meltdown. 

They come up with a little scheme of saying Matt’s favorite species of jellyfishes when overwhelmed. Instead of getting lost in the cacophony and chaos, Frank holds his hands and repeats the words until Matt starts repeating it with him.

_ Aurelia, Hydra, Marnesi, Olindias, Tamoya.  _

He eventually buys Matty two tiny, 3D printed sculptures of his two favorite jellyfish species. The Flower Hat Jellyfish and the Moon Jellyfish, ( _ it’s Olindias Formosa and Aurelia Aurita, Frank) _ , and he hugs him so tight Frank is sure there are bruises the shape of his arms.

Never let it be said that Frank was a softie. He wasn’t. 

Thing is, Matty might be oblivious to a lot of things, but he’s insanely smart. Frank knows he’s been noticing the improved meal times, the prompting in his special interests, the replacement behaviors, their soothing techniques during meltdowns. Had taken it all in with those clever, sightless eyes of his and kept quiet.

Frank thought the first time Matt would bring it up wouldn’t be devoid of a lot of persuasion from his part. It’s not a problem if Matt doesn’t want to talk about it yet, he’ll be ready one day and they can talk then. If he never wants to talk about it, then it’s okay too. Not exactly healthy, but Frank knows how Matty faces things head on and his avoidance pertaining the subject would, soon enough, crack.

He surely had not expected the day to come so soon.

So the day he comes home to find Matt pacing by the kitchen table, wriggling his fingers anxiously he gets a bit alarmed. Castle has no idea what could be the matter since he has been working the whole day.

“I know you know” he blurts out as soon as Frank steps inside. His eyes not hidden behind red shades this time, brows furrowing, showing how anxious he had been. “You maybe thought I did already, or maybe you didn't. I mean, you talked about it so you obviously suspected. I'm not stupid, I'm sorry- that's not what- I'm not... I don't know how to say this- I’m not. I’m not- I’m not a freak, you know that right?”

Frank stopped at the term, frowning at Red’s tense shoulders rising up to his ears. He is a second away from saying what he thinks about that particular use of words, or others he had heard some really ignorant people say in the past, when his mind connected the dots.

Fuck, those aren’t Red’s words at all, were they? It was an echo. Things people repeated endlessly in his ear as he grew up, the good and the bad. 

_ Thank you for pancakes. _

_ Is that a rule? _

_ I just don’t understand some things people say, I’m sorry- _

_ I’m not stupid, I’m sorry- _

_ I’m not a freak. _

“Matt. You know I don't- You know I could never think that”

Frank is about to comfort him by this point. Matt was headstrong, he had faith in his own abilities and he trusted himself to deal with risky situations. But he was still a man and had insecurities, and doubts about himself. Still had heard a lot of ableist shit in his life, not only due to his blindness but probably for being on the Spectrum.

Matt looks riddled with energy one time, and then the other, he’s releasing a huge sigh, shoulders sagging, nodding his head

“Thank you” Matt whispers, then, fingers falling flat by his side. “I... when I was diagnosed, I was 13. I was in the orphanage and they didn't know what to do with me, they already thought I was stupid because I couldn’t see and then... They almost considered putting me in another place. So I never tell anyone about it, I should have, but...”

His voice fades then, looking sheepish as he turns his eyes to Frank’s, landing somewhere by his cheeks.

“I guess I was afraid”

Frank sighed too. It was one of the first times he heard Matty admit to being afraid of something. He usually swallowed it up and overcame each and everyone of his fears, even when they came back to haunt him in a later time. He was relentless, even when fighting off his own mind. 

“But... You... you didn't make a big deal. And you understood me and... studied when you didn’t understand and- and helped me when I didn't get things and nudged me when I was being rude, and showed me when people were taking advantage of me. And you helped me with the sounds and the smells, and... you didn't think badly of me” the last part is a muttered, a fragile thing. Frank knows how difficult it is for Matty to let himself show vulnerability in front of anyone else, and the way he gives it so easily to him in that moment makes his heart jump.

He remembers how they met then, Matt’s incessant talking of second chances and life choices. Of people who should have a second chance. Frank wasn’t so sure of those beliefs, although he always admired Matt for never giving up on them. Recalls how, even tied down to a chimney, Red directed his eyes towards him and stared him directly in the eye (or so he had thought at the time, when he didn’t know any better). He faced him with a gun in his head, even after being shot, and didn’t stand down.

He had been reluctantly impressed, that day. And all the days after, and the appreciation only grew.

Frank lets his work stuff down, taking off his shoes and making sure they were aligned by the door. Matt notices that too and smiles, shaking his head slightly in amusement. But when Frank gets closer he frowns once again.

“Actually that is incorrect. I can't presume to know what you think. What I meant is-“

“Hey, baby” he comes closer and holds his face, kissing his nose firmly and then his lips. Red always seemed to know what type of kiss Frank wanted. A deep, ravishing one. A slow, gentle one. So he kissed him: sweet and carefully, tasting and loving. Relishing in the feeling of being able to hold him close and give him every last scrap of goodness he can find inside himself when, a year ago, he wouldn’t hesitate one second to say that Frank Castle was a dead man walking and was just as bad as the monsters he killed.

“I know what you meant. And you don't need to thank me yeah? I'm.. I wanna be here for the long ride, sweetheart, if you want it too. I wanna be there for ya... I'm learning to speak you and you're learning to speak me, and that's it. You talk about me.. trying to understand you but you do the same, you did from the beginning” 

Matt turned his head at that, confused puppy frown in place (and nose scrunch) and Frank chuckles, holding his waist and face close, he couldn’t bear any distance between them right now.

"You don't have meltdowns. And you don't have freaky ears. And you don't act like a weirdo" he grumbles and Frank’s heart skips a beat with the way he so easily brushes himself off, talks shit of himself as if it was nothing but the truth. 

“Hey.. that's my boyfriend yer talking about” he tries to joke and Matt chuckles a bit, shaking his head. “You have no idea, huh?”

“Hm” Matty agrees, clearly relaxed when they are this close, and Frank’s pressure against him is just right and his heartbeat is so sweet in his ears.

“You bought me a TV. You have no use or want for one and you're not exactly a well paid employee but you bought it. You noticed by old combat boots were hurting me and bought me another with those fancy, ahm-.. therapeutic soles?”

“Yeah”

“Yeah... Shit, Matty, you learned what helped when I had nightmares, you gave me space when I needed it, gave me company when I asked it. You.. you went all the way to Lenox Hill by  _ foot _ to buy me those sleep teas from that fancy shop that helped a whole lot more than I thought it would” he chuckles in that statement, awed disbelief still present even after the events. 

That Matt would take a bullet for him (and anyone else, for that matter) was something he had no doubt of. But this little things in their daily lives. Getting used to each other, perceiving each other’s struggles and being there for the other. It’s what really got to Frank.

It was the little things that he thought he’d never have.

“You started leaving the bedroom door open, even if you don't like it, ‘cos you know I like to have eyes on all the exits. You even started buying those god awful hot pockets when you noticed they helped when I was in one of my frenzies. But you still made me sandwiches and food after that”

“They smell bad” Frank snorted at that.

“Yeah they do. They do, sweetheart” he hides his face against his hair. But he keeps talking, because he thinks Matt needs to hear this. Needs to understand it.

“You helped me find a better job, took care of me when I had my bad days, missed work, made  _ honest-to-god  _ blanket forts.. you're all strung up about it but... I was just doing the same you did Matty. I was learning the man I love, sunshine. The same way you learned me." 

Matty was doing a shit job at pretending he wasn’t crying, but Frank let him pretend all he wanted. It was the first time he admitted he loved him out loud, even if Frank didn’t think you needed to say it to make it true. It didn't feel difficult or terrifying, for the first time. 

Just the truth. It was all the truth. 

No need telling himself he has no space left in his rotten, rotten heart for that. No need to convince himself he’s past that. He isn’t, he’s only human in the end of the day. And he bleeds and he loves.

Those godawful sites who said autistic people didn't have or understand feelings could shove their bullshit up their asses. Matt understood right then better than anyone could ever do what it meant for Frank to say that and hugged him tighter. Not only admitting it out loud, but letting himself be vulnerable again, after everything that happened the last time he did.

"I love you too, Frank. I really do"

And, of course:

"We're like seahorses" Frank chuckles deep in his chest, holding Matty close.

“Why?”

"They can swim alone, but it's hard, their bodies aren’t designed to be good swimmers. So they prefer to swim in pairs, with their tails linked so they share the burden"

Frank smiles.

"Yeah.. I get it Red." He kisses his forehead and temple.

The next day, Karen comes to Matt’s apartment when he’s not there (that after almost a year of dating, it’s practically Frank’ apartment too, he’s been helping with rent for more than four months). She has this amused expression and Frank just knows she isn’t here to talk to Matt, although it’s the excuse she comes up with.

“You know, something interesting happened today”

“Hm?” Frank already knew what it was, of course. Matty had told him he wanted to talk to his friends about his ‘omission’ as he had put it and, with a tired, hesitant expression asked what Frank thought of it. He had tried to reassure him that this were his friends and they wouldn’t judge him on that, and that, if he didn’t want to, he was not under any obligation to tell about it to them.

Matty, as he always did, decided to face it head on.

“Matt burst through the office, gave us chocolate muffins, waited for us to eat and then said, and I quote ‘I lied to you. By omission. I don’t understand half of the things you joke about, and there’s a reason why’. But you.. probably knew he was gonna do that” Frank smiled into his coffee cup.

“Maybe. Not like that, though”

“Right” Karen chuckles too, her eyes straying to Frank’s notebook. The one he had labeled  _ A Study in Red _ after that one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle book that Matt liked to read (over and over again), he just didn’t read it more than that one about jellyfishes and all the Thurgood Marshall ones. 

“What's this?”

He grunted in answer, rubbing the back of his head. She had already started reading though, looking progressively surprised.

“ _ Carrots and peas: _ ” because there was a whole fucking page for that one, it’s just not bigger than the one he wrote about Matt’s shutdowns. Those are usually worse than the meltdowns.

She reads it out loud. 

“ _ Carrots and peas only cooked together if the same size and proportion. No fancy spices, just garlic and salt. If cooked in pasta, make sure pasta isn't over cooked or too hard. 15 minutes ideal. Spices only organic. No peppers or the ‘clumpy stuff’. Alfredo sauce and butter pasta is always a win, comfort food. Never put paprika on absolutely anything. If anything is slightly burned, make another' _ wow.. okay, this is a lot"

"Eh. You get used to it"

"Yeah but... make another? Isn't it difficult to be minding all these stuff all the time?”

“I had kids, Karen. Nothing harder than taking care of them. If I gave Frankie carrots, smashed or not, he'd spit it right back in my face. Lisa used to cry when she was s baby and we tried to give her the greens”

"Yes but.. I don't know. Aren't those things he can deal with? You know, ignore?" Frank squints a bit at her at that, and she squirms in his gaze. “I'm just asking. I'm not that knowledgeable”

“Course he can. It just makes him overwhelmed. Dealing with making food the way he likes is way better than having him in distress and hold him when his stomach gets upset and he can't stop throwing up. His senses are insanely sharp, so if he eats something that overwhelms him...”

“His stomach rebels. I understand” she sighs. Looking around. "What's the deal with carrots and the peas?" Frank chuckles.

“The textures are nice, Matty says. But only if they aren't too different. Textures, sound, taste, smell, they are all really sharp. His lil' tongue likes it the same size, I'll cut it the same size”

“Doesn't he cook?”

“Yeah. Boiled eggs. Which he doesn’t eat anymore”

“Why?” Frank grunts, washing his used cup.

“Says Matty he can't make 'em as good as mine” 

“Sounds to me he wants his man spoiling him” she has that knowing, mischievous smile in her face. 

“I like spoiling 'im” he mumbles back, smile in place. Karen just shakes her head, a fond expression in her face. 

At the beginning, Frank had expected Karen would be the one to oppose Matt’s relationship with the punisher, simply because he knew she had loved him romantically in the past. Even if they didn’t really work out. She had proved herself the most enthusiastic, however. 

Supportive too. And it had really helped Frank back then, who had been waking up for weeks with doubts circling around in his head. 

She looks uncomfortable now, fiddling with her fingers. He knows the moment she inhales that she’s about to ask something she’s hesitant about, and that leaves Castle curious.

“Is it difficult?” the blonde inquires, eyes a bit shy, unsure of how Frank will take the question “I mean... finding out all of this, when he tried to hide it from you and everything. Especially something that’s... I don’t know. Something that changed your routine so much”

Frank stops to think about it. He knows Karen doesn’t mean any harm behind her words, knows she’s not implying Matt’s a handful or anything of the like (although he is, and not for the reasons one might think and simply because the most stubborn, reckless, sassy, witty and beautifully skilled martyr there ever was). So he thinks about his answer before he says anything.

“You know... Maria, she had a routine with the kids” the marine starts, making his way to his armchair ( _ his,  _ when did it become  _ his? _ ) and sat down slowly, Karen sitting in the couch. “I was away for most of the year, see? So she had this little schedules so she could remember everything she had to do to get them to school, fed, showered, groomed an’ everything. When.. when I came home, I’d just mess things up you know? She’d stay stressed out at me for weeks and it took me a while to adapt to their timetables and all.

“So, it’s not different from that, see? When you leave with people when.. when you really get to know them, share a space with them, share your life with them? You learn, you adapt. Both do. You see, I-.. I have this horrible temper. You know that. Sometimes I- I get these frenzies, where my head is stuck in a trench and my body is ready to fight, even if I know I’m not there. Some days, I just keep remembering their voices, Lisa’s and Frankie’s and I’m unmanageable. And Matty, he has to deal with that too” Karen nods, that familiar teary, understanding look in her face that always get Frank spilling his guts.

“With all this... this insane rage fits I get from time to time, my routines, the nightmares, the grumbling mess I’m most days- he learned to live with it, he learned to get me through it. I didn’t ask that of him but he did it anyway, see? I couldn’t do anything else but the same for ‘im”

“Yeah...” she smiles, a big, teary one. “I guess this is what Frank Castle looks like when he’s in love, huh?”

Frank huffed, but he can’t quite keep the smile out of his face. 

Matt was a reminder to him. That he’s only human, that he can’t crush down the part of him that longs to be loved and to love, to care for. To give comfort and affection. And Frank, he likes to think he might be a reminder to Matty too. That he doesn’t have to be perfect, that he doesn’t have to prove himself at every turn. That it’s okay to love and be loved, to  _ want  _ things for himself. To be vulnerable and to be cared for.

It’s the peace Frank found in the chaotic mess that his life had become and it’s all that he wants.

“I’m glad” Karen says then, and her eyes are bright with the feeling, honest in all of her words “that you found each other like that. Matt is way less anxious now. He takes better care of himself, always looks well rested” she reaches out to take his hand then “And you, Frank. You’re like a different person altogether”

“I’ll take that as a compliment” he grunts back and Karen laughs. But Frank just smiles reservedly. He may be afraid to show his happiness to anyone else, but not to Karen. She had been there for him more times then not. And she had been there for the man of his life, too. 

She leaves that day after hugging him tightly and asking him to tell Matt that they’re invited for Thanksgiving with Nelson at their office. He closes the door and heads to the kitchen. He knows what to bring for Matty and himself, something easy to eat. 

He takes the notebook and he sits in his armchair, closing his eyes, his pointer finger holding the notebook open on the page with Matt’s favorite recipe. Pasta with carrots and peas cooked in white sauce. 

He hears the soft  _ tap tap tap _ of Matthew’s cane as he comes up the stairs. Frank feels peace and he isn’t scared of it for the first time in his life.


End file.
